


The One Who Got Away

by vega_voices



Category: Murphy Brown (TV)
Genre: Breast cancer, Cancer, F/M, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Lost Love, the one that got away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-10-01 02:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: “Can cold feet really end a relationship? I have to believe it was something more. Something deeper that was wrong with us.”





	The One Who Got Away

**Title:** The One Who Got Away  
**Author:** vegawriters  
**Fandom:** Murphy Brown  
**Timeframe:** _Just Like Gold Times_ (season 10)  
**Rating:** General  
**A/N:** This is NOT part of the Come Rain, Come Shine series. Sorry, kids. But it is perhaps a prequel to [There’s No Such Thing as Starting Over](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15178871)  
**Disclaimer:** Murphy Brown is the property of Diane English and Bend in the Road Productions, Warner Bros. and all that jazz. Of course I don’t make any money off of this. In fact, I have other projects to be working on. But these guys are my happy place right now.

 **Summary:** _“Can cold feet really end a relationship? I have to believe it was something more. Something deeper that was wrong with us.”_

“So who is?”

It was midnight. Time for the late night chats that Murphy was learning were as much for Kay as for her. Kay carried the weight of a life on her bizarre shoulders, and while she was still getting used to the woman, Murphy was starting to value their friendship. Deeply.

“Who is what?” Murphy was staring down the barrel of a long night of rolling nausea - something she had hoped would fade over time with the end of her chemo, but no, here she was, still feeling the poison roll through her body. With every wave, she could almost feel a cancer cell multiply. Over and over again.

“The one who got away. If it isn’t Jerry Gold, who is it?”

Murphy glanced to the bedroom door, seeing through it, to another time when a man in jeans and a leather jacket would trip his way up the stairs to wrap her in his arms. Laughing their way out of their clothes, they’d tease each other to climax over and over again before dinner was served. He would switch effortlessly from lover to father, holding Avery in his lap and telling him stories about life on the road. She’d seen it then, in her three year old’s eyes, how he fell in love with a life she could see was starting to call him.

“His name was Peter,” Murphy said quietly. “Is Peter. He’s still alive.”

“Oh? How did you meet?”

She trailed her fingers over the blanket, remembering how shocked she’d been to see Peter’s face pop up in the old clips. The Middle East story they’d shared an Emmy for. The way he’d lingered in her office when they won the Humboldt. How he’d come back and kissed the hell out of her and for the first time in her life she hadn’t been able to hide. She hadn’t been able to put up a wall because he jumped right over it and took her in his arms and to this day she still wasn’t sure how she’d messed up so beyond badly.

“He worked for FYI. He was a correspondent for a while before going back out in the field.” Murphy rolled over and opened the drawer of her bedside table, drawing out the photo she still kept. Her and Peter and Avery together under the tree out back. Reena had taken it when they told Avery they were getting married. Tears touched her eyes as she traced Peter’s familiar face. “For the first time in my life … I was really in love.”

“What happened?”

Maybe it was the late night, the nausea, the loneliness, that Jerry was now married, she just wasn’t sure. But the tears rolled out of her eyes and onto the sheet. “I don’t know. One minute we were engaged, and the next he was back in Mogadishu and we haven’t talked since …” she hiccuped and forced the tears under control. “He was … just about perfect, Kay.”

“Peter, Peter … Peter Hunt?! You were engaged to Peter Hunt? I mean, I’m most in shock that you were engaged but to Peter Hunt?!”

“Yeah,” Murphy sighed. “It was the best two years of my life. And I still don’t know why it ended.”

“You ever think he wonders the same thing?”

Murphy did think. She still stared at the phone on late nights, wondering if he was home, if he was with anyone. If he still wanted to be a father. “I try not to,” she admitted, hating the vulnerability. But, these chats weren’t just places to be snarky anymore. “I really try not to.”

“What made you fall in love with him?”

Murphy stared into the eyes of the one man who truly had her heart. Who understood her. “He didn’t let me get away with my usual crap. He saw right through me. I usually don’t like it when people call me on my crap, but I loved how he did it.”

“So what was the real reason you broke it off with him? You were engaged, I can assume that meant he loved Avery too. What made you stop wanting to marry him?”

Murphy bit her lip, thinking back, past the night when he’d walked out the door, past the bachelor party and the endless tripping over schedules and hell just to get married. She couldn’t remember now why she’d wanted it done so fast other than escaping her own terror that maybe when the hurricane moved on, he wouldn’t want her anymore. Wasn’t that enough of a reason? But she thought back, past Corky and Miles and a dinner at a restaurant where she’d made a fool of herself all to see if they were right for the reception and all she could see was Frank’s face. Frank standing in her living, terrified that her finding happiness meant he didn’t matter anymore and she’d let him, let that moment, go from being a kernel of truth that she had to work through to being a labyrinth of vines she couldn’t navigate out of. Frank had told her that Peter made her happy and she should marry him, but she’d let his fear talk her out of it. At least, that was what she told herself. It wasn’t like her life would change that much once Peter moved in, but she’d let the terror of singleness take hold.

“I still want to,” Murphy finally admitted. “And if he walked in the door tomorrow and took my hands in his and asked me again, I’d probably say yes.” She wiped her eyes. “Remember that fling I had when I was first diagnosed?”

“The younger guy. Scott?”

“He could have been Peter, honestly. Shaggy hair, leather jacket, looked good in jeans, didn’t care that I was older. And part of why I broke it off with him wasn’t about being embarrassed to be seen with a younger man. It was more about … well …”

“Him getting drafted?”

Murphy chuckled. “That too. But I realized I was just replacing my Peter fantasy.” Kay was silent and Murphy jumped in, stopping the wheels she knew were turning in the other woman’s head. “Don’t you dare. And he works for CNN now anyway, so you can’t just ask him to be on FYI.”

“I was just …” Kay laughed. “Okay, I was doing the math in my head. Sorry, sis.”

“It’s okay. I do it too. I just … what? How unfair is it of me to still be pining for him after all these years? Especially now.”

“You ended up in bed with Jerry Gold. Tell me, did you know he was getting married before or after?”

“After.” Murphy rubbed her eyes. “I almost killed him.”

“What stopped you?”

“What, you’re an interviewer now?”

“I learn from the best.”

Silence. Murphy slid the photo back into the drawer and adjusted the blankets. “Jerry shows up and I lose my mind. Same with my ex-husband, Avery’s father. Who, I, thankfully have not seen since I told him I was pregnant. They just reduce me to mush. But then it’s over and my head clears.”

“Something tells me it wasn’t like that with Peter.”

“He made me sharper. Better. Smarter, really. More aware of myself.”

“He didn’t let you hide.”

“Not once.” She flipped the light off, but popped it back on when the darkness was too unsteady. “Well, except when we called off the wedding.”

“Why do you think he let you get away with it that time?”

“Because if I said it outloud, it would hurt too much for both of us.”

“So what’s the reason?”

“You don’t let up.”

“I told you,” Kay said. “I learn from the best.”

Murphy sighed. “Because I was scared how my other relationships would change and I refused to acknowledge they already had. But if he called me on it, it meant …” she sighed. “It meant …”

“Maybe his feet were as cold as yours.”

“Can cold feet really end a relationship? I have to believe it was something more. Something deeper that was wrong with us.”

“Why?”

“Because if I was just an idiot and gave up my son’s chance to have a father who loves him and my chance to be happy with a man I still love, then I’m a bigger failure at all of this than I thought.”

“You’re fifty now, Murphy. Maybe it’s time to embrace happiness.”

“I’m fifty now, Kay. Maybe it’s time I accept that sometimes, a door is closed behind someone and it’s okay. Because at least for a couple of years in my life, I knew what love really was.”

Silence again. Murphy’s eyes were closing, but she was scared to sleep. Scared of the inevitable run to the bathroom and the dry heaves that could wake up Avery.

“I hope you find it again, sis,” Kay said. “I really do.”

Murphy grunted her agreement, but the waves took over and she hung up the phone to go wrap herself around the toilet. An hour later she rose, stumbling back to bed, to see Avery standing in her bedroom door, a glass of water in his hand for her. Tears fell anew and she took it, sipping, before climbing back into bed. She patted the space next to her and Avery climbed up.

“Are you okay?”

She glanced at the phone, wishing she could call someone to come reassure her baby. Frank was only ten digits away, but there was someone else her fingertips itched for. Someone who would put Avery back to bed and then curl up with her and hold her until she slept.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sometimes it just hits me is all. I’m fine.”

Avery’s eyes were wide with worry and she took a breath, searching for anything to distract him. “Hey, do you remember a guy named Peter?”

He frowned, and in the moment looked so like his almost step-father it took her back. “I think so? He was really tall, right? Always wore jeans and stuff.”

“Yeah, that was him.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I just got talking to Kay about him tonight.”

“Why?” Avery’s brow furrowed again.

“This might surprise you, kiddo. But he was almost your step-dad. He loved you like you were his own. And well, Kay was asking about him. So he’s on my mind.” She pulled the photo out. “See here, this is us. Right after we told you that we were getting married.”

“Wow …” A smile crossed Avery’s face. “Wait! I do remember him I think.” He glared at her. “So why didn’t you stay together?”

Murphy shrugged. “It’s a story even I’m not sure I understand. But, he was on my mind is all. I’m sorry he wasn’t your dad.”

“Is it too late?”

Murphy chuckled and put the photo away. “Probably. But it’s okay. I’ve got you and your Uncle Frank and Uncle Jim. I have Aunt Corky and Kay. You’re surrounded by people who love you. That’s what matters.”

“Mom?”

“Yeah, kiddo?” She was getting tired for real this time.

“You deserve to be happy, you know.”

She sighed and patted the pillow next to her. “I am. Now, get some sleep.”

Avery groaned but curled up. Murphy cut the light and this time, the darkness didn’t roll. She fell asleep listening to the sound of her son as he faded into his own slumber.

Peter Hunt would just have to stay in her dreams.


End file.
